610 THE PAINTING OF HUMAN BONES AMONG THE INDIANS, 



The deposit of pigments, particularh' of ocher, in the shape of 

 ])aint. with the bodies of warriors, and especially of chiefs, was 

 very prevalent. Red paint was one of the Indian's necessities, and, 

 Avith some of his other possessions, Avas buried with him as a part 

 of his equipment for the future world or his journey thither, 

 Lafitau (vol. ii. 8, p, 41;^), in referring to the articles generally 

 interred Avith the body of an Indian, mentions, among other things, 

 ''a quantity of oil and some color Avith which to paint himself." 

 Loskiel (vol. ii, p. 1"20) tells us that the Indians formerly " used 

 to put a tobacco pouch, knife, tinder box. tobacco and pipe. boAv and 

 arroAvs (or a gun, poAvder, and shot), skins and cloth for clothes, 

 paint, a small bag of Indian corn or dried bilberries, sometimes the 

 kettle, hatchet, alid other furniture of the deceased into the graA'e, 

 supposing that the departed spirits Avould haA^e the same Avants and 

 occupations in the land of souls as they had in this Avorld. But this 

 custom," Loskiel says, " is noAV (in ITD-i) almost entirely abolished in 

 the countrA^ of the DehiAvares and Iroquois.'" 



Among the Hurons, according to Sagard (Ilistoire du Canada, 

 Paris, 1G3C, vol. iii, p. 647), some paint Avas buried with the Avomen, 

 in order that in the other Avorld they had enough to paint their robes 

 Avith. Quantities of red ocher have been found in ancient Maine 

 graA'es by Mr. C. C. Willoughby, of the Peabody ^fuseum. Rev. J, 

 M, Spainhour, in 1871, found in a mound on St. Johns River, North 

 Carolina, three skeletons, and Avith each a quantity of red pigment 

 (YarroAv, p. 27,) According to Elliott (a'oI, i, 60) and Young (p. 

 142), " the first Europeans Avho came to Cape Cod found there in an 

 Indian grave nice matting, a bow,' a decorated and painted board, and 

 tAvo bundles of red poAvder, in Avhich lay the bones of the buried.'' 



Mr, Moorehead found red ocher, and in a fcAv instances also yelloAv 

 and Avhite mineral paints, heaj^ed, as he expresses it, on or near the 

 hands or other parts of the body, in earth mounds in several parts 

 of Ohio. LeAvis and Clark (vol. j, p. 2li9) mention having found 

 some red and l)hie paint Avith the cadaver, of an Assiniboin female. 

 Mr. II. I. Smith, of the American Musemn of Natui-al History, 

 unearthed a skeleton at Saginaw, Mich., Avhich Avas covered Avith red 

 pigment, the surrounding soil being of a totally different character. 

 Dr. J. Walter FeAvkes found vessels containing '' yellow ocher, ses- 

 (|uioxide of iron, green copper carbonate, and micaceous hematite '' 

 in Avhat Avas apparently the burial of a priest, at AAvatobi, a ruin of 

 a former pueblo the base of Avhat Avas formerly the first mesa of the 

 Ilopi Indians, in northern Arizona, and he found similar pigments 

 in graves at Sikyatki, another ruin in the same region; and examples 

 of a similar nature could be nndtiplicd. 



Judging from the references to Indian mortuary customs made by 

 various authors, there Avere apparently a large number of instances 



